Alias reacted instantly with the practiced grace of an experienced adventuress. She drew one of the daggers from her boot and, with a flick of her tattooed wrist, shot it at her observer. The creature pitched backward without a sound, but the dog fell into the room with a frightened yip. The dagger sank half an inch into the oak window frame.
Grasping her flame-seared sword, Alias flung herself across the room in one fluid motion. When she reached the window, however, the creature was gone and the alleyway empty. The short-haired dog yipped at her feet, rising on its hind legs and placing its front paws halfway up her boots.
“I don’t suppose you know anything about this?” she asked the dog. The puppy merely wagged its tail and whimpered.
Alias picked up the small creature, petted it briefly, then dropped it outside the window. The beast barked at her a few times, then began sniffing the rubbish.
“The lady has risen from the dead!” shouted the barkeep in a merry voice as Alias entered the common room. She did not know this particular barkeep, but knew others just like him who ran inns from the Living City to Waterdeep. He was a loud, boisterous man, full of “hail-fellow-well-met” attitudes, favoring adventurers in his trade because the additional gold they usually carried made up for the damage their barroom arguments caused.
A few heads turned to look at her, but there were no familiar faces among them. Alias had decided to wear her armor plate after all. She looked more suited for battle than for a few drinks, but many of the merchants, mercenaries, and townsfolk were similarly armed and armored, so she fit in. Like most of those in the room, Alias wore her weapon at her side. Like all of those doing so, she had the blade’s grip tied to its sheath by white cord, fashioned in “peace knot.”
She took a table near an interior wall, away from any windows, where she could keep an eye on both doors to the common area, and the barkeep as well. He was a portly, balding man, obviously guilty of sampling his own stock. He took her attention as a request for service, and after a few obligatory passes with a rag over the bar, he filled a large mug from the tap and brought it over to her table. Foam ran down the mug’s sides, and beads of water condensed where the rivulets did not run.
“Hair o’ the dog what bit you?” offered the barkeep.
“On the house?” asked Alias.
“On the bill,” the barkeep replied. “I like to keep things on a cash-and-carry basis. Don’t worry, you’re still covered.”
For the moment Alias was more interested in the blank spaces in her memory than in who was covering her tab. “I was here last night?” she asked.
“Yes, lady.”
“Doing?” Alias raised an eyebrow.
“Why, sleeping it off. And it must have been a Hades-raising drunk indeed, for it is the seventh day o’ Mirtul.” When Alias stared at him blankly, he explained, “You been here since the evening o’ the fourth, done nothing but sleep the whole while.”
“Did I come alone?”
“Yes. Well, maybe not. May I?” He pointed to the empty seat at the table. Alias nodded, and he lowered his ponderous weight into the chair, which groaned under the load.
“One o’ my regulars, Mitcher Trollslayer,” he continued, “stumbled over you that evening after the last call. You wuz laid out on my front stoop like a sacrifice to Bane.”
The barkeep drew the circle of Tymora on his chest to ward off any trouble uttering the evil name might bring. “Anyway, there you wuz with this sack o’ money alongside. I put you up, using the money in the sack to cover your tab. Here it is, too, with only the cost o’ the room deducted.” From his apron pocket he fished out a small satin sack. “Doesn’t count the beer, o’ course.”
Alias shook the contents from the sack. A small, greenish gem, a couple of Lantan trade bars, some Waterdeep coinage, and a scattering of Cormyrian coins. She shoved a silver falcon at the barkeep. “I don’t remember coming here. Someone must have left me. Did you see anyone?”
“I figgered you must have been carousing with a bunch o’ mates who, when the effects caught up with you, left you on my doorstep with enough cash to guarantee your comfort. No one told us about you until Mitcher found you on his way out. You wuz alone.”
Alias looked at the mug as the foam on top diminished to reveal a watery amber liquid. It smelled worse than the rubbish outside. “Why wouldn’t my ‘mates’ bring me inside?” she asked.
The barkeep shrugged. The mates-leaving-the-lady-on-the-doorstep theory was apparently his favorite, and it was obvious that he had been telling and retelling it over the past few evenings. He was reluctant to change what seemed to him a concise and well-rounded tale.
“No one has asked after me?” Alias pressed.
“Not a one, lady. Perhaps they forgot about you.”
“Perhaps. No lizards?”
The barkeep sniffed. “We keep the premises clean. We wuz waiting for you to wake before cleaning your room.”
Alias raised a hand. “No lizard-creatures, then? Something that looks like a lizard-creature?”
The barkeep shrugged again. “Perhaps the last brew you had haunted you some. You recall what you wuz drinking?”
“I recall precious little, I fear. I don’t even know what town I’m in.”
“No mere town, but the gem of Cormyr, the finest city o’ the Forest Country. You are in Suzail, lady, home o’ His Most Serene and Wise Majesty, Azoun IV.”
Alias had a mental map in her head of the region. Cormyr was a growing nation, sitting astride the trade routes from the Sword Coast to the Inner Sea. The name of its ruler struck a responsive chord. Is he a friend? An enemy? Why can’t I remember things?
“Last question, wise barkeep,” she said, holding up another silver orb, “and I will let you go.” She turned the hand holding the coin to reveal the inside of her arm and its bright tattoo. “Did I have this when I arrived?”
“Aye, lady,” said the barkeep. “It wuz there when we found you. Mitcher said the Witches of Rashemen wear such tattoos, but a Turmishman said he wuz full of bee droppings. There wuz some mutterings, but I put my foot down and, as you see, the sky hasn’t fallen on my inn. I considered you a good omen, at that.”
“Why?”
“The name of this house. The Hidden Lady.”
Alias nodded. Taking this as a dismissal, the barkeep scurried back to his bar, rattling the orbs in his hand as he went.
Alias reviewed what the barkeep had told her. It makes sense, she thought. Adventurers have been known to dump off drunken companions, leaving a tattoo as a reminder. But why these symbols? They mean nothing to me.
Alias gulped a mouthful of ale, then fought the urge to spit it across the table. The brew tasted like fermented swill. She forced herself to swallow it, wondering if the wretched taste of the beer had been why her unknown benefactors had left her outside and not entered the establishment.
“I hate mysteries,” she muttered with annoyance. She toyed with the idea of pitching the nearly full mug at the barkeep, accusing him of poisoning the clientele. When in doubt, she thought, start a brawl.
She pushed the beer away, her attention diverted. The barkeep was talking to a tall man wearing robes of crimson highlighted with thin white stripes and an ivory white cloak with red trim. The barkeep motioned a pudgy hand toward Alias’s table, and the man turned to look at her.
His skin was dusky and his hair, a curly brown mane banded with gold cords, hung to his shoulders. He had a moustache, and his beard was cut straight across at the bottom like a coal shovel. His eyes were blue. On his forehead were tattooed three blue dots, and a sapphire was embedded in his left earlobe. Alias recognized him as a southerner and knew the dots marked him as a Turmish scholar of religion, reading, and magic. The earring meant he was married. But she did not recognize the man himself.